Re: [bug report] libnvdimm, nvdimm: dimm driver and base libnvdimm device-driver infrastructure

[Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@intel.com>]

On Wed, Feb 5, 2020 at 11:08 AM Dan Carpenter <dan.carpenter@oracle.com> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Feb 05, 2020 at 10:23:00AM -0800, Dan Williams wrote:
> > > > >    506          if (device_add(dev) != 0) {
> > > > >    507                  dev_err(dev, "%s: failed\n", __func__);
> > > > >    508                  put_device(dev);
> > > > >                         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> > > > >    509          }
> > > > >    510          put_device(dev);
> > > > >                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> > > > >    511          if (dev->parent)
> > > > >    512                  put_device(dev->parent);
> > > > >    513  }
> > > > >
> > > > > We call get_device() from __nd_device_register(), I guess.  It seems
> > > > > buggy to call put device twice on error.
> > > >
> > > > The registration path does:
> > > >
> > > >         get_device(dev);
> > > >
> > > >         async_schedule_dev_domain(nd_async_device_register, dev,
> > > >                                   &nd_async_domain);
> > > >
> > > > ...and device_add() does its own get_device().
> > >
> > > device_add() does its own put_device() at the end so it's a net zero.
> > >
> >
> > It does it's own, yes, but the put_device() after device_add() failure
> > is there to drop the reference taken by device_initialize().
> > Otherwise, device_add() has always documented:
> >
> >  * NOTE: _Never_ directly free @dev after calling this function, even
> >  * if it returned an error! Always use put_device() to give up your
> >  * reference instead.
> >
> > ...so what am I missing?
>
> The "never call kfree" is hopefully straight forward because the kobject
> needs to do its own cleanup.
>
> __nvdimm_create() allocates the dev.
> nd_device_register() calls device_initialize() which call kobject_init()
>    so the refcount is 1.
> __nd_device_register() call get_device() so the refcount is now two.
> nd_async_device_register() decrements the refcount once on success.
>
> But if device_add() fails then it decrements it twice.  Now the refcount
> is zero so we call nvdimm_release().  This leads to a use after free on
> the next line:
>
>         put_device(dev);
>         if (dev->parent)
>
> There is a trick here because depending on the debug options it
> might free immediately or it might call nvdimm_release() after 4
> seconds.  See kobject_release() for details.
>
> Either way if device_add() fails we return back to __nvdimm_create()
> and return the zero reference count "nvdimm" pointer, which is going
> to be a problem.

Ugh, sorry I thought you were pointing out that there's too many
put_device() not the use after free. Yes, the use after free is a bug
that needs fixing.
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